Malcolm Yates told the News and Mail he regretted not having the opportunity of apologising more to residents as he outlined some of the benefits of the project following our story last week. Mr Yates said: “The obvious advantage is that, although we’ve disturbed the land during the building process, we’ve reinstated the land. “Generally when you build houses and have a hard flat roof nothing lives on it apart from a bit of lichen. “With an earth shelter, you build your house and disturb the soil. Then you restore the soil and have all the wildlife you’ve disturbed coming back again. From an energy point of view, if you go down about a metre, the standard temperature is around 10 or 11 degrees. If you want a comfortable house of 18 to 20 degrees, you only have to raise the temperature by seven or eight degrees. “The whole house is like a storage heater. In the summer, the house absorbs excess energy into the concrete and the concrete warms up. In the winter, it lets the heat out. The theory is it shouldn’t take any heating because there’s probably enough heat from the people in the house.” But despite the theory, Mr Yates says he has encountered practical problems along the way that have delayed the building. “We found a builder after going to tender, but a week before he was due to start he pulled out. That was the middle of 1999. So we went back to tender and found a contractor who started in October 1999. “Then there were some pumping issues and arguments about the roof and how strong it should be. These were not resolved until August 2001. Nothing has happened since. “The main reason is because the builder was unhappy with the specification details and we were trying to cajole the architect into getting more specification details. “In November 2001 I decided to change architects. “But now I’ve got a start date of August 5 to begin work again at the site. I could have started a month ago, but I wanted to make sure we knew precisely what we were doing. “I have dropped in a note to the neighbours saying ‘start date, August 5’ and there will be more disruption because you can’t build a house without disruption. But we are very aware of the issues and we try and find a way of minimising this.” Mr Yates says he has sympathy with those who are angry and annoyed. “I have spoken to as many people as I can around the site and there are some new people who have moved in,” he said. “I had a meeting with them in 2000 and yes, I apologise, yes, it’s a mess and I wouldn’t do it given the choice. Maybe I could have kept it a little tidier; maybe I could have taken stuff off the walls. “But the original plans would have been a bare six to nine month build. “So yes, I do understand and I can’t do anymore than apologise at the moment and I apologised in the letter I sent to them. I wish I’d had more chance and opportunity to apologise as we’ve gone along because I think that’s been part of the problem.”